The article is devoted to the analysis of the original works in portraits of ballet dancers by Yuri Vladimirovich Pugachyov (1930-1998) from the collection of Memory Department of the History of Russian Choreographic Education in Vaganova Ballet Academy. The author reveals the painter’s methods of working both with photographs when creating memorial portraits of outstanding Russian ballet dancers and with living models. New archives and materials discovering the history of pictoral and sculptural portraits by Yuri Pugachyov, which have not been published earlier, are introduced in this article.

New facts from the biography of one of the most outstanding students of Vaganova, Natalia Kamkova, are revealed in this article. The main focus is on the cultural environment where future ballerina and pedagogue emerged and built her career.

Readers are presented with memories of the period of training in the classroom V.S. Kostrovitsky, the role and the impact that has had an outstanding teacher and an outstanding person for further creative destiny of the author.

The article, based mainly on archival research of the author, reveals to the reader little-known personality traits and destinies V.S. Kostrovitskaya, talks about hers contribution to the methodology of teaching classical dance and introduces some episodes of her memories of the Leningrad blockade. The author introduces into scientific use some fragments of unpublished diaries of the outstanding ballet teacher.

Article devoted the social, psychological and aesthetical causes for confrontation between Prokofiev and Balanchine at the time of composing «The Prodigal Son» ballet are investigated. This ballet, initiated by Diaghilev, was created in accordance with the complementarity principle, with ambivalent musical and choreographical components in their contradicting unity.

Author, considering a variety of style and dramatic features of choreographic interpretations of «Spring» (XX - beginning of XXI century), identifies causes of extraordinary demand for the Stravinsky’s work.

The article is devoted to the legendary ballet «Marguerite and Armand». The article focuses on the relationship of F. Liszt’s music and F. Ashton’s choreographic solutions. The correlation of dramatically deep and lyrical episodes of the ballet is taken in the account. The analysis is conducted from the standpoint of the implementation in the ballet of the ideas and images of the Romantic era. The characteristics of Romanticism are reflected at the level of musical and choreographic text, autobiographical context, interpretation of artistic images and emotional degree of sensory experiences.

Ariadne is a heroine in Greek mythology. In Russia at the turn of XVIII - XIX were staged several ballets the story of Ariadne, Theseus and Bacchus. This article examines the history of these productions involving unexplored literary and musical sources. In the spotlight of publication unknown libretto and the musical manuscript of a ballet by French choreographer P. Chevalier de Bressol to the music of spanish composer V. Martin-I-Soler «Ariadne, abandoned by Theseus on the island of Naxos». The problems of textual criticism, dramaturgy, style and reconstruction works. The libretto was translated from french into russian and appears for the first time.

In 1980-ies the term «drambalet» was frankly negative and even derogatory overtones. Professional discourse of ballet history presented «drambalet» (direction of highly effective innovative step in the development of ballet), charged with «total rejection of traditional classical structures» for «dancing pantomime and dramatized dance». By considering the phenomenon of «drambalet» with examples of his best specimens, who received not only recognition of his contemporaries, but also a long stage life, the author concludes: horeodrama («drambalet») - an eligible genre ballet, taking roots in the reformist practice J.-J. Noverre (XVIII c.), and developed in the creativity of outstanding choreographers in subsequent periods. One section of the article is devoted to the creative productive relations of Japanese and Russian ballet, especially actively carried out in 1950-60-ies. on the ground of horeodrama.

In paper functions of a national choreography are considered; first, on an example of communications of country and city cultures process of interaction of cultures is covered in development of is musical-choreographic forms of multifigured round dances and dances; secondly, in choreographic folklore of Russian and Ugro-Finnish ethnoses; thirdly, in dynamics of an existing of national dance from the past to a modern situation. Creative adaptation of the French quadrille in Russian countries shows, how «another’s» becomes «their own’s» as it answers inquiries of youth, that varies in the course of adaptation. The existing of choreographic folklore in city culture XX-XXI. Ethnokulturological aspects of a problem is traced centuries are supplemented with illumination social cultural and pedagogical aspects.

Nowadays, there is an unfilled demand for folk dance experts in various fields of art, culture and education. The said problem is solved to some extent by the Choreography Department at the St. Petersburg University of Humanities and Social Sciences (SPbUHSS). In this institution, the students learn ethnic choreography in a phased manner. The program intended to train students in ethnic choreography has been developed and tested for more than a decade (since 2002). Thanks to long-term efforts, the department succeeded in building up the course units oriented to train specialists and bachelors having proficiency in ethnic choreography.

The article reviews musical examples that illustrate the techniques and methods of piano accompaniment in ballet class in the twentieth century. Analyzes the musical illustrations in the books according to the method of classical dance, published by masters of ballet pedagogy - A. Zorn, N. Legat, A. Vaganova (music illustrations by S. Brodskaya), L. Yarmolovich (music illustrations by M. Paltseva). The author of the article notes and identify their most important characteristics and functional criteria. Formulates the application of improvisation and basic principles and methods of art of piano accompaniment in ballet class.

The article is devoted to aesthetic reading of postmodern «weakness», a concept implemented in the «weak theology». The current return of religion back to cultural foundation from the rank of cultural phenomena is connected with the denial of religious dogmatism and searches of conditions for multiplication of cultural diversity. In these conditions, the aesthetic creativity gains the special importance as it practically generates differences that justifies human existence.

The article touches upon one of the central themes of the musical and philosophical discourse that has spread from philosophy to the theory of New music and composer further practice. In the works of Umberto Eco, it sounds like «innovation and repetition», as interpreted by Gilles Deleuze «difference and repetition». Contrasting the concepts absolute originality (innovation) and repetition, the author analyzes the characteristics of the «series» of art, as well as various types of repetition. The author refers to the concept of «difference and repetition» in the works of the Austrian composer B. Lang and position of Eko-Deleuze, analyzes two his cycles, devoted to philosophical topics «Monadology» and «Difference and Repetition». The main scientific conclusions of the article becomes a conceptual proximity of philosophy and new music, as well as the representation of the latter as a kind of post-philosophy type activities.

The article is devoted to the problems of the organization of the spatial image of the architecture and the art of decoration; identify and organize sustainable iconographic compositions of monumental decoration of the Russian Interior XVII - the first third of the XIX century. Attention is paid to the mental peculiarities of perception data spaces. Establishing a correspondence between the different types of thinking, visual forms and types of compositional techniques, that creating a grotesque image of the interior space.

The article is an attempt to assess the life and creative activity S.T. Richter the race in 18 years that have elapsed since the death of the great pianist. It noted an unusual ratio of traditional stages of a professional career; Richter describes the performing in the main sections of his repertoire. The Richter ‘s important finding in piano area. As an outcome the author presents Richter social role of art and its relation to the world of Soviet cultural modernity and lasting significance of all that he did, in the fate of the world of piano playing.

The conversion of traditional opera structures is an important aspect of Verdi’s reform. This paper deals with Verdi’s statements of his musical-dramatic ideas by example of grand-finale. Finale’s structure was conventionally based on the four-part «la solita forma». Letters of 1880th reveal Verdi’s attitude to grand-finales. A large part of these letters wasn’t translated into Russian earlier

The article is devoted to the creative connection Adolph von Henselt, German pianist, composer and teacher, who had lived for 50 years in Snt. Petersburg, & Russian composers of his time - P. Tchaikovsky, M. Balakirev & A. Rubinstein.

The relations of art and reality is the most important subject of the vanguard and postmodernist art theories. Many art practices of the XX century sought to connect and identify the art and the life. An interaction of the fictional and real worlds in the theory of the textuality and the intertextuality is the characteristic explanation of these relations. In particular, this interaction became a subject of reflections in the works of the largest semiologist of the XX century who was Umberto Eco - the Italian scientist and writer. His ideas contain some generalizations which have aesthetic character and explain the specifics of the postmodern art processes.

The article is devoted to one of the most unusual, but at the same time the most significant trends in the history of art - Dadaism. Considers its basic aesthetic positions; Citing the example of the most original works of Marcel Duchamp, H. Ball, F. Picabia, E. Satie. It is alleged that Dada has played an important role in the development of such phenomena of the second half of the twentieth century, as the happening and performance, affecting the formation of Actionism in general.